Call Me Charlie

Issue 275

You guys,

I’ve been writing my memoir for nearly a year and a half and have multiple readers giving feedback on various portions and drafts. One note—from two different readers—sent me into a spiral. They wanted more introspection, more of my perspective, more of what’s going on for me in these big, sometimes pivotal moments.

My knee-jerk reaction to these comments is, No. That’s not what I want to do. That’s not what I like in memoir. I am intentionally not doing what you’re asking me to do. But am I just being defensive? Should I give the reader more? Am I saying no because I don’t want to do the hard work of changing what I’ve written?

In today’s Memoir Snob episode I spoke with

Joanna Rakoff

, the author of My Salinger Year, and she said something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

“Often I think outside reads can be dangerous,” she said. “...Most readers are going to subconsciously try to have you make your book what they want. … You ultimately know what you want to do. You know what your book is. Even if you don’t think you do, YOU DO, and you just have to be patient with yourself.”

It was a double punch of insight. First, the permission to write my book as I want to write it and trust that I know exactly what I want it to be. And second, that in order to do so requires great patience. I’ve been declaring my book plans for everyone to hear—I should be finished writing it by August! So I hope to publish in 2026!—but this is highly unlikely, unless I wanted to self-publish, which I do not. Joanna Rakoff, who’s had immense success with both her books—the first, A Fortunate Age (a novel), and the second, My Salinger Year, which was turned into the widely acclaimed film starring Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley—spoke at length about the importance of patience.

“If you really want to write something great,” she said, “if you’re really aiming at greatness, at things truly working, not at just getting something out there, you have to be okay with letting some time pass.”

Joanna has been working on her second memoir, The Fifth Passenger, for seven years. I’m not sure how long mine will take, but I do know I want it to be great.

There was so much more to learn from this conversation with Joanna. She explained that in order to write fully-fleshed, three-dimensional characters you need to write from a place of love and cold-bloodedness at the same time. At one point I dismissed book proposals and Joanna said, “I don’t know that that’s true,” then launched into the importance of book proposals and how difficult they are to write. At the end, she gifted us with her favorite writing conferences and a list of books that have most inspired her writing.

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Until next week,

Charlie